Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 Axes GFWL Service

Relic Entertainment, the developers of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2, are removing the game’s Games for Windows Live requirement from the game. The system, which was previously in place as a DRM measure, required players to log into the GFWL servers to play it in either single- or multiplayer modes. It was rightfully criticized by players, who greatly prefer the more subtle DRM offered by Steam.

The game, which now appears to be using Steamworks for DRM, was given an update today with an accompanying post on the game’s Steam forums informing players that GFWL had been removed from the game. 

The patch also removes LAN support, which comes as a price for the implementation of Steamworks. 

Other updates in the patch include the inability to pause in multiplayer, which made no sense to begin with, and the removal of Referee Mode. 

The game’s leaderboards and achievements have been migrated to the Relic servers away from GFWL. It’s curious as to why they didn’t opt to use Steamworks for that too.